Microsoft's embrace of iOS and Android is not a new mobile strategy

With Windows 10 Mobile's imminent demise, Microsoft's iOS and Android investments are the company's new mobile strategy, right? Wrong.
Many have presumed Microsoft's progress with bringing its products to iOS and Android, and its deeper assimilation of those platforms into its ecosystem via Microsoft Graph are a new mobile initiative.

This is particularly true since Microsoft confirmed the end of Windows Mobile and traditional smartphone hardware. I wrote in July 2015 that Microsoft's goal is to infiltrate (with Microsoft apps) and assimilate (with Windows 10 and Windows Companion app) iOS and Android. I stressed the company's ideal outcome was a Microsoft ecosystem that included iOS and Android alongside its first-party mobile platform. If the Windows phone component of that strategy failed, however, Microsoft's iOS and Android investments would remain and emerge as its Plan B on smartphone hardware.